Amid an ongoing, constant stream of sexual misconduct allegations, the young trailblazing editor-in chief of a niche literary magazine, The Bombay Review (TBR), quit on Thursday. Kaartikeya Bajpai stepped down after an ex-staffer accused him of sexual misconduct towards fellow employees, in a searing Facebook post that quickly went viral. Bajpai was a student of print journalism and communications (UG) during 2012-2015, at the Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication (SCMC) in Pune’s Lavale; thereafter, he moved on to helm TBR in Mumbai.

Mansi Goda, the former employee of the magazine who called out Bajpai’s alleged sexist behaviour with female staffers, said they were subjected to verbal/emotional abuse and workplace harassment. Her post, she said, was a warning to aspirants to not work at TBR. Goda joined TBR in May 2016 and said she is not a target of Bajpai’s, but wrote the post after witnessing all the abuse faced by her co-workers.

“Bajpai has used unprofessional language – animal slurs, religiously coloured remarks, sexist comments and incessantly pushy behaviour on multiple occasions with multiple female employees, and done a lot worse to some of my colleagues he entered into relationships with. The relationships were abusive, showed male chauvinism and gaslighting, and detrimentally affected the mental well-being of women involved… I am speaking up is because my sisters cannot. Considering that three other women cannot take legal action or divulge this mess, the least I can do on their behalf and for all other women who might fall into this trap is to put this out. Also, despite him being made aware about his actions, the realisation has not translated to anything in action,” Goda wrote.

She told Mirror, “Bajpai would only hire girls. There are hardly two or three men at TBR. Making derogatory comments and speaking shamefully of women was routine for him. There were no boundaries with respect to personal and professional relationships. It was extremely disgusting to work there,” she said adding, “In group conversations, he would say someone had fat thighs, call someone a ‘pig’, or say, ‘My dog can work better than you’. My last conversation with him was on February 12. I told him I cannot go on with what he is doing. He gaslighted victims saying they couldn’t take a joke, or were overreacting.”

In response to the post, Bajpai stepped down as editor of TBR, announcing it on his Facebook page.

“I, as editor-in-chief, The Bombay Review, take full responsibility of the work environment at the magazine, and would like, as Miss Goda suggested, to request readers, and our fans to not blame the magazine for my own individual shortcomings. I am now stepping down with immediate effect, and shutting down the magazine indefinitely. I look forward to passionate individuals who can make this magazine their own, and continue what I started and believe in. To defend would be a shallow move and I will not attempt that. The magazine to a large extent became what it is today due to Miss Goda’s hard work, along with that of many other talented colleagues. For that I will be forever grateful, and to all the people I have caused any kind of agony, I apologise unconditionally… Miss Goda’s post about the workspace environment was true; there have been incidents that I personally regret happened while they were working with us. I could never imagine that it would come to this, and will be taking extreme measures to rectify my behavior and ensure a comfortable workspace in the times to come,” he wrote.

When Mirror reached out, he refused to comment on the charges, saying, “It’s all online on my profile.”

After Goda’s post, several batchmates and former employees of Bajpai came out in the open with their own harrowing experiences. A former teacher of Bajpai’s shared, “He was completely manipulative even at the young age of 19 or 20. As a teacher, I was shocked with such behaviour from a student. His attitude was very threatening even towards me, for no apparent reason.”

Ex-batchmate Ushnav Shroff added, “To be honest, I’m not very surprised with the allegations. While I did not witness any sexual harassment during my tenure at TBR, I can definitely say Bajpai is a very egoistic person.”